2022, Vol. 4, Issue 1, Part A

Author(s): Dr. Suprita Jha

Abstract: Men in most societies were seen as breadwinners while role of women was restricted to being a good homemaker and a good mother. This applies to women in a highly patriarchal society too in India. As societies entered the world of modernization, the role of women changed dramatically. Media played an important role in the modernization of societies and greatly affected the image of women in today’s modern world. A number of researches have been done on the role of women in different societies. However little has been said about the importance of films in portraying women in shifting roles over different decades and the impact it has on societies in general. Mainstream Hindi cinema, or Bollywood, has often clustered female characters into a finite number of gendered tropes, from damsels in distress, Hindu goddesses, virtuous wives and mothers, to vamps, molls, vindictive mothers-in-law, and justice-seeking avengers. Recently, women-centric cinema has attempted to depart from such stereotypical portrayals, with movies such as Queen, Pink, and Tumhari Sulu. In past decades, there is no doubt that Indian cinema has witnessed a significant transformation in the way women are portrayed through films. Contemporary films portray women as more independent, confident, and career oriented This article deals with these fast changing role of women portrayed in Indian cinema and its influence on the patriarchal Indian society with a focus on some representative Bollywood films. The aim is to link the changing character played by women in films with the emerging status of women in India, as films are a reflection of changes in the social structure. To bring out the facts, I have adopted both quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative method reveals a consistent story depictions across movies. Qualitative method shows that major acts of transformation that radically appearead in the modern times. Overall, the study contributes to understand the contemporary portrayal of female in Bollywood.

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